Monitor and manage mailstore quota

You can monitor the amount of space used in your IMAP mailstore.

1. In the Folders list on the left hand side of the Thunderbird window, right-click on the Inbox folder.
   A drop-down menu will be displayed.
2. Click on Properties... from the menu.
   The Folders Properties window will be displayed.
3. Click on the Quota tab to display the usage and status of your IMAP mailstore.

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Managing mailstore

For Thunderbird the default setting for the deletion of email is to Move it to the Deleted folder on the IMAP server.

This does not remove the email from the server and it remains available to be recovered - however, it continues to occupy space in your mailstore.

To remove all deleted mail from the server, from menus select File and then click Empty Deleted.

To selectively remove email from the server, right-click on their entry in the Deleted folder and select Delete Message. Once deleted from the Deleted folder emails cannot be recovered.

Exceeding your Mailstore Quota

If you have exceeded your mailstore quota you will be unable to delete emails in Thunderbird. You will need to log into Webmail.

1. Log into MUSE by clicking on the top left hand link on any University of Sheffield webpage.
2. Click on any email message in the Webmail window to open webmail.
3. Click to put a tick in the box next to the Email subject title for any emails you wish to delete (particularly large ones containing images or media files)
4. Click the delete link on the bottom left of the Webmail window
5. Click Purge Deleted
6. Exit from Webmail and return to Thunderbird. Click away from the folder you were using then back to see the result of your changes.

Last updated: 10 January 2011